Software
Microsoft is looking for more immersive 'Together Mode' web conferencing
(China Daily) When "homework" is the prevailing standard thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, a non-negligible by-product has arisen from the current job practice: exhaustion or irritation related to back-to - back video conferencing.
Now Microsoft Corp heads to the rescue. The Microsoft Teams collaboration software launched a new alternative last week, dubbed "Together Mode," to allow group attendees more attentive of each other and more concentrated on mutual objectives.
In leveraging AI segmentation technologies, the layout unites meeting participants in a specific simulated context such as in a theatre or auditorium, rather than conventionally grouping them in bins.
The functionality would become accessible in August for customers.
The interface helps participants to pick up on nonverbal signals more quickly, which making communication back and forth sound more normal, said Jaron Lanier, a Microsoft researcher and scientist.
The original concept was designed to support citizens through the pandemic. This provides less tiredness from regular video sessions, a greater sense of contact with others and more productive sessions, he added.
According to Lanier, early-stage research has seen participants react more favorably to meetings in the new system, as measured by gauges such as checking for preservation of who's current knowledge awareness, recording time spent, how much time was expended on activities such as bargaining, and the amount of people shutting off their phones.
Technologies are combined to the latest scientific understanding of cognition and social perception in developing the new mode. In Together Mode for example , people know where others are in a shared virtual environment.
This ensures the brain can maintain track of whether other people are actually signalling or emoting, based on social / spatial awareness, so people can signal each other intuitively, nonverbally.
In a line, from their point of view, you don't realize where other people are on the map, next to you, and normal looks and other clear signals are unlikely," he said.
The new mode also tends to alleviate the popular eye contact issue that is prevalent in classic video conferencing: because of the camera 's top-center location on a screen, participants tend to be staring in the wrong direction.
Use an illusion based on special symmetry, everybody views the entire party though a broad virtual mirror, such that people intuitively arrange themselves to appear as though they are responding similarly to each other, thus increasing the degree of interaction.
Lanier said seating availability and registration are not yet accessible, although the organization is aiming to expand the Together Mode to other electronic meeting settings, as well as to pursue potential simultaneous transmission of live transcripts.
The feature was introduced in conjunction with the upcoming Shanghai World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2020, where Microsoft's AI chatbot Xiaoice featured in a music video during the opening ceremony alongside three other simulated avatars from Chinese tech firms.
The business also unveils other innovative apps such as interactive display filters and camera filters.
Source: By He Wei in Shanghai chinadaily.com.cn
